Fantasy Book Critic is excited to welcome Mike Robinson to
our blog today. Mike is the author of the non-linear The Enigma of the Twilight
Falls. He has stopped by today to talk about weird fiction/dark fantasy.

About The Enigma of Twilight Falls Series:

The Enigma of
Twilight Falls is a trilogy that can be read in any
sequence, composed of the novels The
Green-Eyed Monster, Negative
Space and the recently released Waking
Gods. All titles give glimpses into the strange and cosmic phenomenon
beating in the town’s breast.The Green-Eyed Monster (2012)
introduces the northern California town of Twilight Falls, isolated in a
mist-swept valley and a beacon to artists of all stripes - a “brothel of
muses”, as someone once put it. Bestselling authors John Becker and Martin
Smith are natives, not to mention notorious rivals, their dark and ultimately
fatal dynamic embodying something sinister, something knowing and something
looming, at the core of the town.

And what of this strange artistic movement
(to some, a cult) dubbed Neo-Naturalism, the heart of which seems to reside in
Twilight Falls? Negative Space (2013)
offers another vantage point on the mystery, introducing one Clifford Feldman,
the premiere, charismatic face of Neo-Naturalism, who believes humankind’s
destiny lies beyond the flesh, in the realm of ultimate Creation.

Welcome Mike
Robinson!

*****************************************************************

Between the Interstice

On Lovecraft and Weird Fiction

"Back then, with the visions, most of the time I was
convinced I'd lost it. There were other times, though, where I thought I was
mainlining the secret truth to the universe."

------------ Rust Cohle, True Detective

Behind the wide facade of Speculative Fiction twist the
hedge-mazes of fantasy, brood the catacombs of horror and gaze the far-seeing
floors of science fiction. Among them, between them, are the closets and
crawlspaces of the niche, one of which -- a relatively bigger one -- is the
place of Weird Fiction, a dark storage of many souvenirs from fantasy, horror
and science fiction, though dusted with its own special charms.

Weird Fiction is a subgenre that, perhaps more consciously
than other fields of speculative fiction, stirs together elements of the
metaphysical, cosmological and horrific to grimly honor the Big Questions,
remind us of our insurmountable ignorance, to pin down our squirming selves
into our rightful position in the child’s seat, to whisper, maybe in some
alien, mud-packed voice, that, hey, the world slippery and you won’t
ever, ever catch it. The world, in short, is weird.

And past all the horror, the strangeness, that to me is a
nourishing thought. Let me explain.

The moment I cemented my decision to not pursue an
M.F.A (or any academic training) in writing is vivid. While enrolled at Otis
College of Art & Design, I found in my mailbox a little perfect-bound
literary booklet featuring work by the graduate students in fiction. I flipped it
open to a random story. After wading cautiously into the second paragraph of a
painful scrutiny of eyebrow-plucking, I was done. Other entries weren’t much
better. Too many of them seemed concerned with stereotypical, high-literary
minutia, unfortunately the focus and baffling preference of innumerable
professors, awards, journals, and workshops (cough-Iowa-cough).

Personally, I have little interest in quaint journalistic
accounts of Malaysian transvestite violinists at the turn of the century (yes,
I made that up), or the endless slew of aptly-termed “McFiction” featuring some
cocky narrator coming of age amongst his or her overfed, dysfunctional family.
No, I prefer going head-on at the Big Questions, going at them, as George
Carlin might say, with no less than a sledgehammer. Give me ballsy
confrontations with Life, Death, the Cosmos, with Existence, with God.

In their noble attempts at social redemption and inclusion,
many contemporary teachers of literature treat writings in the framework of their
political significance. To me, though, such attempts seem to me nothing more
than new forms of division. It is looking at the grains and forgetting the
shore. Does the world really need a Marxist reading of Huckleberry Finn, complete
with ten-dollar jargon? Academics are on the lookout for the “next best thing”,
the new trend in analysis, the new prism through which to see literary works of
yesterday and today. I say: what about our shared heritage? Our shared -- and
uncertain -- future? Not as any one ethnicity, gender, party, or faction, but
as an entire civilization. A species. A collective piece of this vast Universe.

Of course, much of this material is studied, and much of it
is exhaustively considered and written about. Enter Weird Fiction!

As any fellow devotee will know, H.P. Lovecraft -- arguably
the most esteemed and influential practitioner of the genre -- cleaned out the
catacombs with his pen, defying tropes of ghosts and vampires and expanding
imaginations with interconnected tales of ancient civilizations antedating our
own, of towering alien-gods, of unseen dimensions and humanity’s
sanity-shattering smallness in an inexplicable cosmos. All this made more
impressive by the fact that he wrote in the 1920s, when so much of that stuff
was barely on anyone’s speculative radar, including scientists’. His unknowns
are truly Unknown, and will forever elude explanation.

Certainly Lovecraft’s work has failings, failings probably
more surface-level than those of other lauded authors. He was well aware of his
own wooden dialogue (hence, quotation marks are scarce in his pages) and his
prose sometimes gushes into the purple. Nevertheless, his voice, with its
richly archaic, darkly celebratory cadence, stands alone, and will survive as
long as we’re unsure what lurks “out there”.

Sadly, Lovecraft, and especially his “Cthulu” mythos, have
become somewhat franchised, relegated to corners of the market generally aimed
at Dungeons and Dragons fans, horror enthusiasts, and nihilistic young
adults sporting black fingernails and lipstick. It is a wide “cult following”,
but nonetheless a cult following. Although some scholars have acknowledged his
importance, many see him as a troublesome bridge from Poe to Stephen King. It
is this identity that has, I’m sure, dissuaded many from giving him a serious
go. “Lovecraft? Oh, no, I don’t like that horror stuff.”

But back up. Here we come back to the question of Weird
Fiction itself, because I don’t necessarily consider the canon, or Lovecraft’s
work, “horror”. Certainly there are horrific elements in his work, and his
career does include several standard supernatural yarns. But in his treatment
of cosmic mysteries, and the shadowed realms of prehistory, his is more a
prying curious eye, forcing us to consider those Big Questions, to ponder
notions of, and issues with, the likes of religion, biology, cosmology,
archaeology, and psychology. He sets you on the outside looking in, a contrast
to being in and looking further in to the point of navel-gazing. This exercise
of outside-looking-in, one I believe most writers of fiction should undertake,
helps in a kind of rounding out of thought.

No matter the genre in which one writes, I believe the best,
most poignant stories have at least an undercurrent of this “larger
awareness”, a perception conveying authority and wisdom. So many stories feel
constricted by their own world, characters or concerns. Yet to read Lovecraft
is to confront directly that raw Unknown that surrounds us, that is us.
To get a healthy dose of perspective: a shambling, roaring, behemoth upswell of
perspective.

I mentioned earlier that I think such a perspective can be
ultimately nourishing. In an era of economic, cultural and political tumult,
when millions of Davids the world over shout in fiery voice against the few
far-reaching, corrupt Goliaths, there is morbid comfort in knowing that,
despite whatever the megalomaniacal egos of sadistic leaders, immoral bankers,
or bribe-pocketing politicians might make of themselves, there are impenetrable
forces beyond all of them that will cast mocking eyes towards their suited-up,
gold-rimmed delusions, if they even care to acknowledge them. Lovecraft, and
the general tradition of Weird Fiction, reminds us just how little power the
powerful actually wield. After all, Goliath was, what, ten feet tall? When the
mountain-sized Cthulu rises once more, those people will be nothing but
scrambling ants -- along with the rest of us.

About Mike Robinson: An avid writer since age 7, award-winning author Mike Robinson began selling professionally at 19, placing various speculative fiction stories in magazines, anthologies, e-zines and podcasts. He is the author of the novels Skunk Ape Semester, The Prince of Earth, the short story collection Too Much Dark Matter, Too Little Gray and the non-linear trilogy The Enigma of Twilight Falls. A native of Los Angeles, he is also a screenwriter and producer, and the managing editor of Literary Landscapes, the official publication of The Greater Los Angeles Writers Society. His official website can be found at www.mikerobinson-author.com.